The court considers that there are indications that the former president “knew and knew a lot” about the steps taken to purchase the infrastructure
Ramón Luis Valcárcel’s alliance with ignorance has not convinced the Provincial Court. The court has just overturned the decision of the Court of Instruction number 1 of Murcia to shelve the open investigation against the former regional president for his alleged involvement in the case of the Escombreras desalination plant (‘La Sal Case’). In an order, this body maintains, contrary to what the instructor considered, that there are objective data that could guarantee, in principle, “that the person investigated here knew and knew enough about what was happening with the desalination plant and its most serious incidents , and that, therefore, it could have certain significant responsibilities in the events derived from its own preponderant role in the political and administrative direction of the Autonomous Community». A responsibility, he emphasizes, that could have been produced by action or omission.
The court bases its position both on the judicial declaration of the person under investigation, and on his legal powers as president of the Governing Council, which placed him in a “clear position of guarantor.” The Court also takes into consideration “the intensity and diversity of acts of all kinds carried out in connection with the project, construction, financing, operation and development of the desalination plant, closely linked together, which, in terms of elementary logic and at the discretion of a possible average impartial observer oblivious to the facts, it does not seem that they could go unnoticed -due to their great objective importance- for those who held the position of President of the Governing Council».
In relation to this point, the order contains a very extensive list of the activity contained in the police report of the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) which, it says, “reveals the existence of a vertical corporate structure that was intended to be located in private law but which, in reality, was controlled by the Public Water Entity (EPA) and by the Ministry of Agriculture and Water». With this design, the police report highlights, the Community “would be responsible for the obligations assumed by the public business entity created for this purpose and by the regional company to which it is linked, which would be constituted as Hidronostrum, SA., all for the benefit of interests private”.
In this sense, the magistrates of the Court maintain that “it seems evident that the person investigated here was highly informed, not only of the general lines of the desalination project, but also of many peculiarities and irregularities in its development and financing that They were produced during his tenure over many years. The Chamber, even, does not rule out possible direct actions by him aimed at giving the necessary impetus as president of the Governing Council of the Community “even if they are not accompanied by his personal signature.”
Pave the way for the instructor
The court thus accepts the appeal filed by the Prosecutor’s Office – to which the popular accusation and the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia as a civil plaintiff adhered – which claimed that Valcárcel was still accused of alleged embezzlement of funds in this procedure. The court explains that the Public Ministry tried to knock down the file of the charges against the former president, alleging that the instructor, in his car, did not properly argue if Valcárcel was aware of the alleged plot. A conclusion with which the court agrees and which has caused a 180-degree turn by reintroducing the most important of the defendants into the case.
The Court explains that his car is limited to pointing out the lack of motivation in the car that filed the charges against Valcárcel. The court, however, puts on the table the alleged evidence that could point to the former president and paves the way for the investigating magistrate to re-prosecute the former leader of the regional Executive.
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